Today, we're not going to talk about YouKnowWhat XLII. Because there's nothing to talk about. Today, we're going to celebrate two big wins from our two local winter teams. (We will remind you, however, that we'll be live-blogging YouKnowWhat XLII starting 7:30ish on Sunday. Get your commentin' fingers in shape.)
The Celtics were facing maybe their toughest test of the season so far. There have been Negative Nellies all over the land saying that the C's have fattened up on Eastern patsies, and would show their true colors when the elite Western Teams (Spurs, Mavs, Suns, Hornets(!)) showed up on their schedule. And without Kevin Garnett, that test would become even tougher. No KG, no problem last night, as everyone else in green stepped up their games to (dare we say it?) June-intensity (we said it!) levels to dispatch Dallas 96-90.
Ray Allen, back from the flu, led the charge with 22 points in the first half. The second half was a see-saw affair, with Paul Pierce leading the second-half scoring and finishing with 26. But the star plays down the stretch were defensive; first, Rajon Rondo climbed up through Dirk Nowitzki's jersey to grab a rebound away from the big guy (one of Rondo's 14 rebounds); then, James Posey grabbed a tough rebound and a game-sealing steal to ice the cake.
The game had to ease some of the day's sting for Ray Allen, who learned that he'd be the only member of Ghidorah not selected to the All-Star Game. "That"s crazy," said Pierce upon learning the news. It's hard to figure out which of the Eastern Reserves (list here) shouldn't have made it, but it would have been equally hard to figure out which of them got shafted were Ray selected. We'd chuck Dwyane Wade, since his team is playing like horse manure, but the fans voted him in.
Up in Canada, the Bruins didn't waste any time ending the drama of their game and crushing the spirits of the Ottawa fans. 3:18 into the game, it was 2-0 B's, as Phil Kessel put in a sweet shot off a Marc Savard faceoff and Milan Lucic followed with a score 2:50 later. Marc Savard scored to give the Bruins a 3-0 lead after one. Tim Thomas (as he does) handled things the rest of the way with 30 saves. The Senators only solved him once, on an Antoine Vermette power-play goal, but Chuck Kobasew answered with an empty-netter to finish Ottawa off.
The win moves the B's into a tie for sixth in the East with Jersey. Having beaten the East's top team, the Bruins get a visit from the best team in the league when the Red Wings come to town on Saturday. Then something else happens on Sunday, but we'll worry about that later.
Photo by Flickr's Eric Kilby.
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